But finally I saw signs for Green Valley and knew I was going in the right direction. My heart started pounding in my chest and my stomach filled with countless butterflies. That didn’t seem like quite the right way to describe them. Butterflies were beautiful and felt more like excitement.
Maybe these were more like moths. Fluttering around frantically and leaving me feeling a bit shaky. As much as I knew I needed to talk to him, that I didn’t want him to just be gone out of my life without even a chance, I didn’t know what to expect when I saw him again.
I told him I would never forgive him if he left. I was very clear that if he made the decision to drive away, I didn’t want to see him again. Now I wanted nothing more than to see him again, but had no idea what he was thinking or feeling. Macy seemed convinced something was going on. That it wasn’t really him and there was more to the story than I knew.
But what if there wasn’t?
What if everything that happened between Colt and me was just some sort of game to him? It wasn’t like I hadn’t heard of his reputation. In all honesty, it wasn’t all that unusual for rodeo guys. But it didn’t feel like a one-night stand or just a fling. It felt like we made a connection.
Was it possible he was just stringing me along the entire time? That it was fun for him to convince girls he had some sort of feeling for them and see how far he could trail it along? If that was the case, it made me wonder what it meant that he had suddenly broken it off.
Boredom couldn’t have set in that quickly. Everything had been so good between us.
And yet there was still the voice in the back of my head that said maybe he wouldn’t want to see me. That he really had driven away intentionally, fully meaning to sever all ties between us. He might not be happy that I was showing up.
But that was just a risk I was going to have to take. I couldn’t let my decisions be dictated by worry or fear. Especially when it came to something this important. It didn’t matter if he wanted to see me or not. I needed to see him. I needed to know what happened and to have the chance to have my final word with him.
That thought shifted my feelings. Some of the anger and confusion I’d been feeling about the way Colt treated me came back. I knew then I needed to see him no matter what the outcome because he needed to know what I was thinking and how I was feeling. He couldn’t just get away with this without some sort of closure.
I hoped it wouldn’t go that way. But if it did, I was ready.
I got back to the Montgomery Ranch and drove up to the house. There were several vehicles in the gravel parking area in front of the house, but when I scanned them, I didn’t see Colt’s truck. It was the first moment it occurred to me that he might not have come back here.
He had unfinished business here. There was no question about that. And I thought for sure it would have dragged him back so he could find those answers. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe everything really had become just too much for him, and he decided he needed to hit the road. This time, on his own again.
I had to try. Even if he wasn’t there, his brothers might know where he was or be able to give me suggestions of places he could have gone. Getting out of the car with a resolute breath, I walked up to the door and knocked on it.
We had just been there, yet I felt strangely distanced from the place. It was like one of those movies that showed how the same situation would have unfolded if just one decision had been made differently. I was reliving coming to the Montgomery house but in totally different circumstances.
That feeling continued when the door opened and a man I didn’t recognize looked out at me. This definitely wasn’t one of the men I encountered the first time I was here. I searched his face for the similarities of the others and found some of them, confirming this was one of the brothers. I tried to play the narrowing-it-down game, but my head was so twisted, I couldn’t remember all the details Colt shared with me.
A smile crossed the young man’s face. It wasn’t necessarily a happy smile, more like that moment of realization when things all start coming together.
“Hi,” I started. “I’m—”
“Leah,” he said matter-of-factly.
I nodded, surprised. “Yes.”
“It’s getting chilly out there. Come on in,” the young brother said.
He stepped back away from the door, letting me inside. I was inside for only a few seconds when I heard footsteps coming toward us.
“Sawyer?” a deep voice came from inside the house. “Who is it?”
That solved the mystery of which brother this was, and now that I knew that, it was more obvious. His face was several years younger and some of his features were a bit different than his brother’s. Colt once told me that this youngest of the brothers looked the most like their mother out of all of them.
Seeing him in front of me was a moment of cold reality and I felt a twinge of sadness at the thought that the son who had the least opportunity to know his mother was the one who looked the most like her.
A second later, Wade showed up behind Sawyer. He looked over and, when he saw me, let out a dark chuckle.
“Well, well, come back looking for Colt, aren’t you?” he asked. “What did he do? Run off?”
I didn’t want to reveal anything, so I ignored the question. “Is he here?”
Both brothers shook their heads. We started into the living room. I had wanted to get a better view of it the last time I was here, but now I barely even paid attention to what was around me. I was just concentrating on the men and what they might have to tell me.
“He hasn’t been by,” Wade said, sitting down on the arm of the sofa.
The chuckle was gone now, leaving only the moody surliness that hung over the larger man, like he found the entire situation tedious and just wanted to get back to his day.
“And you haven’t heard from him?” I asked.
This took some of the bitter humor from the bigger man’s face.
“No,” he said. “Not since you two left here the other night.”
“Is something going on?” Sawyer asked. “What happened?”
“We got into an argument earlier today and he drove away from the rodeo,” I said. “He didn’t say he was coming this way, but it seemed like the only thing that would make sense.”
Wade nodded. He was looking concerned now. “We need to find Cassidy. If any of us are going to know where Colt is, it’s going to be him.”
Wade stood and started toward the door again. Before he reached it, the door opened and Cassidy came in. His face was hard, his eyebrows knitted together. He stepped into the house and traded out the jacket he was wearing for another one, then grabbed the keys hanging beside it.
“What’s going on, Cassidy?” Wade asked.
Almost like he hadn’t even noticed us all standing there, Cassidy looked over. He saw his brothers first, then glanced over at me. He nodded at me in greeting.
“Hey, Leah,” he said. “You have perfect timing.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean Colt needs us—and we need to hurry,” he said.
My stomach sank when I heard that. But I didn’t hesitate. The men grabbed jackets and streamed out of the house, and I followed right behind. We jumped into Cassidy’s truck and he immediately peeled away.
“What’s going on?” Wade asked.
“Where’s Colt? Is he okay?” I asked.
“I certainly hope so,” Cassidy said. “The owner of The Junction just called. That’s our local bar, Leah. And unfortunately, the Montgomerys are not exactly strangers to trouble around there. Some of us certainly more than others.”
“Is Colt hurt?” I asked.
“Not as far as I know,” he said, which wasn’t the most encouraging statement he could have offered. “Funny thing is, he isn’t at The Junction. He’s down the street at the other bar.”
“Bill’s?” Wade asked. “What the hell is he doing there?”
“Fighting, apparently,” Sawyer said.<
br />
“Apparently,” Cassidy said. “When the owner called, he just told me someone came in and said a brawl was about to start between Colt, the deputy, and half the people at Bill’s. If we’re lucky enough, we can get there in time to stop any real damage from happening.”
My heart was in my throat the entire time we drove into town. I hadn’t paid much attention to the town of Green Valley either time I drove through it. The first time, Colt brought us around a back way that only skirted a portion of the town, barely giving me a glimpse of it. This time, I followed the signs, which brought me down through the middle of the town, but I hadn’t noticed much about it.
Now that I was in it again, I realized there really wasn’t much to notice. It wasn’t much of a town in general. I knew of small towns. I spent a good portion of my childhood in a couple of them. But this place was tiny. Which explained why the bar owner knew to call Cassidy when an issue started to arise at a bar that wasn’t even his.
We pulled into a lot that came up beside the bar and around the front. Before we even got to a parking space, the doors on the front of the bar swung open and someone came flying out. At that point, I was sure my heart was going to just jump completely out of my chest. It took me a couple of seconds to realize it wasn’t Colt who had been tossed out of the building.
The truck was barely stopped when we jumped out and ran for the doors. I had a brief moment of guilt that we didn’t stop and make sure the guy was all right, but it didn’t stick. I was just thankful it wasn’t Colt and all I cared about was getting inside and making sure he was okay.
We burst through the doors and immediately saw the place being ripped up and turned upside down.
My eyes flickered around the space and finally landed on Colt. He was being held down roughly over the bar while a sheriff’s deputy tried to slap cuffs around his wrists. I remembered what Colt told me about the deputy. This was a member of the Hayes family. The history between the two families and the deputy’s reputation for being less than reliable when it came to upholding the law explained another man trying to pry him off Colt.
It was nothing short of chaos. But it didn’t last long. Cassidy lifted two fingers to his lips and whistled. The sound was piercing and I slapped my hands over my ears to block it. All heads in the bar turned toward us and everything fell strangely still and quiet.
Chapter 35
Colt
I had to be knocked out. It was the only rational explanation. Because there was no reason on God’s green Earth why Cassidy, Wade, Sawyer, and Leah should be standing at the door of Bill’s bar.
Not only was Leah being there a clear signal that my semi-conscious brain was trying desperately to come up with something to distract me from the oncoming pain, but the fact that any of them would be at Bill’s and not The Junction was another signal that I was simply seeing things.
Then Cassidy did his damn whistle thing and the bar went completely silent and I realized with dawning horror that they indeed were there. Cassidy and Wade looked fit to be tied, absolutely furious. Sawyer was rolling up his sleeves, apparently about ready to jump in the fray.
Then there was Leah, standing behind Wade, her eyes locked on me and an expression I couldn’t quite read. It was either concerned, sad, excited, or furious. Or some combination of them.
Roy wrenched on my arm again and the cold steel of the handcuffs on one wrist told me I was in pretty deep. I struggled and he wrenched higher, causing me to shout in pain. Cassidy whistled again and held up his hand, to which even Roy stopped in his tracks.
I rolled my eyes as best I could. He always did have a flair for the dramatic, Cassidy. As he lowered his hand, he scanned the bar, and I wondered just how comically insane the visual must be. Still, before this particular brawl, the townsfolk weren’t usually willing to listen to a Montgomery not named Cassidy. Perhaps with him here, there was a chance at sanity.
“What the fuck do you want?” Roy spat. “This isn’t your situation, Cassidy Montgomery. Now you get out of here before I cuff all you up too!”
My other arm got wrenched around to meet the one already in cuffs and I groaned in exhaustion and pain. Cassidy started stomping over and I shook madly trying to get the deputy loose. I almost had him off me when suddenly the pressure released and I tumbled to the floor by the bar.
I looked up to see Cassidy hauling Roy off me. Fury was roiling in both their eyes, but Roy was tired and a little battered. Cassidy was fresh and had the righteousness that he usually had when he was about to read someone the riot act. One finger poked out and waggled in Roy’s face and I leaned my back against the bar to listen.
“You listen here, Roy Hayes,” Cassidy said. “You listen too, Ben, and everyone else in this damned bar. I am damn fed up with this stupidness. And that’s what it is, petty stupidness. You are all like a bunch of damn stupid mules, I swear. None of you listen. You get into the same fights every other day, and nothing ever changes. How many times have you hauled my brothers into jail? This year even? And how many times did a judge hold it up? This is damned silly, Roy Hayes. And an abuse of power at that! “
Cassidy was on a roll and not quite finished. “You have been playing your little games with me and my brothers since the day we put our father in the ground. Every time I turn around, you are trumping up some bullshit to give us grief over, and every single time, we end up whupping you and your brother for it. We are all damned adults. We should start acting like it. But I swear, Roy Hayes, I am done. If you want a fight, then you have one, right here, right now. But you are going to have it with me, and I will put your ass down. Do you understand me? Down.”
There was a tense silence and with it I stood. Roy was still eyeing Cassidy but he reached into his belt and pulled out a small key, slamming it onto the bar. I grabbed it and unhooked the one hand he had been able to get into the cuffs and slammed them back onto the bar with the key. Rubbing my wrist where the cuff had been, I watched Roy and Cassidy stare each other down. I would be shocked if Roy took the bait, especially after the bar turned on him already. A fight with Cassidy wasn’t something anyone in the town wanted and a fight with Cassidy after he had already gotten a good shit-kicking from me seemed like a bridge too far for a coward like him.
Sure enough, Roy grinned. It was the same stupid grin he had every time he realized he wasn’t going to win and was going to try to play it off as him being “the bigger man” or some bull. He shot one look over at me before turning back to Cassidy and grabbing his cuffs. Slamming them into his pocket, he looked around the bar for his brother.
“Well, Ben, I think it’s time to leave this shithole and let them get back to drinking swill,” he said.
“Let that be a lesson,” Ben said over the fallen younger Farnsworth. “You don’t mess with the Hayes boys.”
“Shut your mouth and get out of here,” Tommy said from where he was crumpled against the wall, a beer back in his hand as if the brawl was just a minor inconvenience and distraction from the real night’s purpose.
“I’d keep my mouth shut if I were you, Tommy,” Roy said, then turned back to Cassidy. “It’s been, well, I’d say it was lovely, but it wasn’t.” Then he turned to me and spit on the bar beside me. “Next time I see you, I owe you a receipt.”
“Next time I see you, I’ll give you one,” I said.
“One of these days,” Roy said, “the Montgomerys are going to get what’s coming to them. When the time is right.”
“Is that a threat?” Cassidy asked.
“A promise,” Roy responded. “When the time is right.”
With that, Roy turned his back on us and walked to the back of the bar, not making eye contact with anyone else before he made it to the door. Ben followed close behind and their buddy was already out of the door. Before he left, Roy shot off a cocky little salute and then turned it into flipping the bird. When he did, the remainder of the patrons remaining in the bar began to boo him mercilessly. Stunned, he looked around and began to flip them o
ff too. Ben gently put his hands on his brother’s shoulders and guided him out of the door.
When the door shut behind them, there was a collective sigh. Bill poked his head out of the door leading to the stairs and surveyed the damage. Shrugging, he walked back behind the bar, grabbing a broom and beginning to work on the mess of broken glass. Tommy sat down heavily on one of the barstools and took a deep drag of his beer. I had the sneaking suspicion he had poured it for himself in the fracas.
“Before I get my brother out of here, I wanted to thank you for sticking up for him,” Cassidy said. “I saw you giving Ben what for.” He pointed at Eddie and Eddie Jr. “I appreciate that. More than I can say. I owe you both a favor, and all you have to do is give me a call and I will drop everything for it.”
Edward Farnsworth Sr. waved his hand at us and shook his head. “Truth is, I’ve been wanting to lay in a shot or two at the Hayes boys for a while. Way I see it, Colt did us a favor by giving us the opportunity.”
Cassidy nodded, seemingly not catching the humor. “Fine,” he said. “My offer still stands though. Bill?”
“Yes, Cass?” Bill said, suddenly right back to his normal spot behind the bar, cleaning a glass with a dubiously clean rag.
“A round for everyone. On me. Whatever they want.”
“On it,” Bill said.
“Tommy, is that you?” he said, turning his attention to him.
“Surprised you remember me,” he said. “You went out with my sister when I was a kid.”
“Sure, I remember Tina,” he said. “Thank you for sticking up for Colt. Same offer goes to you too.”
“Appreciate it,” he said.
All his business being settled with the fellow combatants, he turned to Sawyer.
“Sawyer, can you stay and help Bill clean up?” Cassidy said. “I’ll send a ride for you in about a half hour.”
His Sexy Smile Page 20